


oh, have mercy

by guardianoffun



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e02 Arcadia, F/M, M/M, Multi, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 11:17:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21074027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianoffun/pseuds/guardianoffun
Summary: If Morse had any sense at all, he would have seen the end before this all begun and he wouldn't have let himself fall quite as hard as he did. But for a smart man, Endeavour Morse was a bloody fool when it came to love.





	oh, have mercy

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the Brett Young song Mercy bc that's my sad bop, go listen to it 10/10 inspired this fic

“You know that girl I was seeing, Hope?” Jakes says and Morse’s heart sinks. He should have seen this coming. They’re lying on the sofa in Morse’s dingy little bedsit, nothing but a blanket pulled up over them. Sure the sex had been great, but Jakes had been a little faraway in his gaze. He’d been distant for a few weeks. Not that they had any grand sort of relationship, just an arrangement of sorts. Two blokes, both on the force and only a twenty minute drive between them, it was bound to happen. So it had seemed destined, Morse thought, as Jakes had traced absently along his shoulder, that Jakes would leave.

This whole thing between them had started some time after he returned home, well to this house. He’d vanished up into the woods hadn’t he, after prison; too unsure of facing everyone again. Then that whole mess happened, and Morse lost what felt like the only real connection he had at that point. Jakes had appeared on his doorstep one night, a bottle in hand. He’d said he wanted to say thanks, though for what Morse wasn’t sure. Not speaking about the horrors of Blenheim Vale? For standing by Thursday, for not admonishing him for not doing the same? For coming back? 

So they had drunk, and they had bickered, and then they were laughing and sharing long smiles. Then Jakes asked about Bixby and Morse had to swallow down another drink lest he sober up. Morse hadn’t said it outright, but Jakes was a detective. He inched closer, slapped a hand on his back, said he was sorry. Then he had kissed him. 

Any other night Morse might have thought Jakes was playing some cruel trick on him, but there was something real in the way Jakes’ held his hand. He fell into it, let it happen. He won’t say love, he can’t, but it’s something. Peter Jakes has become this very solid presence in his life, the rock he felt tethered to when it all got too much. Peter Jakes was warmth and laughter and dark eyes, teasing and harsh but always real and  _ there _ . And here it is, all about to disappear. Morse’s head spins a little. 

“Broke it off when you… while you were inside,” Jakes says, and Morse realises he hasn’t spoken in a while. He nods numbly against Jakes’ chest. Feels it when Jakes’ sighs, long and drawn out. The seconds feel like eternities. Why is he dragging this out, does he not care about Morse at all?

Jakes’ presses his nose to his head, and it’s then Morse feels tears falling. He hadn’t expected that. 

“She’s pregnant.” 

That throws him. His stomach drops, and then it knots and his heart suddenly feels like it’s falling to pieces. He sits up, hoping the world will right itself as he does. Jakes’ hands reach out for him, hanging in the air like he thinks Morse is going to take off. He’s tempted to. 

“Morse,” Jakes says it so softly, it’s so unlike him. He sounds like he did that night in the pub. “Morse, say something.” 

He can’t though, his throat is too tight. His lips won’t move. He shrugs instead. Jakes sighs again, but it sounds a little wearier, more broken. 

“I have… I have to do what’s right, don’t I?” He must have decided that if Morse isn’t talking, he will. The silence is just too painful. “This isn’t something I can walk away from. Is it?”

Why is he asking, what does he want; permission? Morse doesn’t want to give it. Don’t get him wrong, he knows they could never be like real lovers, never like a real couple, but they have - had - something. It was different, but it was theirs. And now he’s sitting there, slowly unravelling it. Morse almost wants to tell him he can walk away. They could ignore it together, here on the sofa for the rest of the night. But he can’t. 

“I think,” Morse says thickly. “I think you should go.” Jakes nods slowly. He doesn’t move though. Morse feels his lips curling, and he’s spitting the words out before he can stop them. 

“I think you should go  _ now _ , Jakes. Go.” He looks over at him, and Jakes’ is staring wide eyed. 

“What?” He reaches over, tries to go for Morse’s hand. “We can talk-”

“I don’t think so. You’ve already made your mind up.” The pain in his chest turns thorny, wraps around his heart and squeezes. Acid fils him drip by drip. “Haven’t you?” 

Jakes’ face falls. “It’s not like I wanted this to happen Morse. But it has happened. I can’t change that.” By the end of it his voice sounds hollow. Morse turns away. Jakes stands, grabs his clothes off the floor and pulls them on slowly. All it does is draw it out. He moves, as though to touch Morse. Morse stiffens under his hand. 

“See you at work then?” he asks. Morse nods blindly. 

* * *

It’s like before, only it isn’t. It’s not like Monica, because that was Morse leaving (perhaps that’s what this is, it’s karma) and it’s not like his mother dying because that wasn’t a choice. This is Jakes choosing Hope over him, this is like Susan, this is just like any time he’s tried to find happiness. Morse’s legs find their own way off the sofa, to bed. He pulls on a pair of soft cotton bottoms, thinks about a vest and then crashes onto the bed instead. 

There’s a bottle of scotch under his dresser, he knows this because he left it there when it rolled from his hand one night and decided to leave it there for future emergencies that required drinking in bed. He pulls the bottle up, grabs the cleanest looking glass off the nightstand and pours himself… maybe more than one measure. Then another, to be sure, and then all of a sudden a crushing wave of loss hits him, and he hears himself let out a sad sounding sob. Might as well finish the bottle.

* * *

The room is more than spinning, it feels like he’s in the middle of a bloody hurricane. Like everything he had all neatly organised has been picked up and slammed against the wall. He rolls over, legs caught up in his sheets, and swears. It sounds muffled, his tongue heavy and clumsy in his mouth. There’s a distant part of him that’s disgusted in himself, because he knows he looks a state. It’s been god knows how long since Jakes left, but the bottle’s empty. 

His insides twist, and he has to scramble from the bed to hang over the sink just in case. But perhaps the sickly feeling is coming from his heart instead because nothing happens, he just retches until his throat is raw and his eyes are wet. Fingers curl around the basin, tears splashing against the porcelain. He’s a mess. When the tears dry up and his lips stop quivering, he splashes cold water on his face and turns back to bed. 

He stops to sling some record on, anything to drown out the sound of his heart cracking against his ribs. He falls face down on the bed and lets the music fill him till he can’t feel anything. 

* * *

Endeavour Morse doesn’t do hangovers. He doesn’t do slouching into work squinting against the morning sun, in yesterday’s shirt and teeth that feel all wrong in his mouth. He bottles all that up, slaps a cap on it and buries himself at his desk. He lets the hours tick by, evidence bagged and records filled. The archives are still being sorted, there’s plenty of dusty paperwork to keep him busy. Enough to pile up around his eyes, so he doesn’t have to see the world outside, or the desk just across from his. 

It’s almost afternoon when Thursday sends him off to investigate a suspected burglary, and he’s ready to drag Strange along with him, because the thrumming in his head is feeling more and more like a headache with every second. Then Jakes stands up, follows him out, and honestly Morse is just too tired to argue. He won’t argue, won’t make scene but that doesn’t mean he’s got anything to say to Jakes. The anger might not be there anymore but the gaping hole in his chest, the one the fits Jakes so well, that’s still there. 

Jakes tries to talk to him, about something stupid at first, and when he realises Morse isn’t playing along he snaps his jaw shut and waits until they’re at the scene. There it’s all constable and sergeant, and  _ yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.  _ It’s the bare minimum to get by, Morse hasn’t the capacity for anything more right now. By the time he reaches home, he’s said maybe ten words all day. 

The next morning, it’s Strange who tells him Jakes is leaving. He acts surprised, agrees it’s odd, but that it’s probably for the best. Jakes corners him in the loos that afternoon, has him up against the sink. 

“Let’s talk about this Morse, please,” he says with those eyes all sad and pleading. Morse’s chest feels like it’s been cracked open. If Jakes wanted to he could reach right in and crush his heart between his fingers. Part of him wishes he would, to end it all. He opens his mouth to tell him as such, but his words betray him.

“You’re going to make a great father, Peter.” 

* * *

This time, the in-between is what hurts the most. Jakes has two weeks before he ships out. There’s a do the night before, at the pub. It hovers in Morse’s calendar, watches him, stares at him. He both wants it to come and to never arrive. If it happens, then Jakes goes and Morse can be sad until he drinks enough to forget him, and then he’ll be okay again. If the day never passes Morse can pretend they still have it all. Half of him, some horrible selfish part, hopes Jakes will have some drunken night, where he turns up at Morse’s door and admits he’s got it all wrong, or that he needs one last night of passion before he marries into this dull American life. But Peter Jakes is not that man. He’s reliable, dependant, he’s a caring man with a tough exterior who does what’s right no matter the cost. So there’s no last night of passion, none of that.

There’s a handshake, outside a pub Morse can’t bear to step in. There’s a small envelope, a generous gift, and the ghost of a hundred letters Morse tried to write. In the afternoon sun, Jakes is put together, family-man in the making, but Morse can see the lipstick stain on his collar, the flick of hair that’s come loose of the gel; he can see all the little quirks because he knows this man. He’s got these things memorised, the curve of his neck, the smell of his cigarettes, the feel of his hands across his back, the sound of his laugh when he’s too sleepy to hide his amusement. All of it is there, in Morse’s mind forever, never to be his again. 

He has to drops Jakes hand before he does something stupid, like pull him in for a kiss. That’s not what they are, it’s not what they could be. The girl in there, with her red hair and gorgeous smile and life halfway across the world, that’s his future now, and it always has been. Morse should have seen this coming.

**Author's Note:**

> i lvoe breakign my own goddamn heart


End file.
